stanislaw_lemfandomcom-20200213-history
Neogene
The Neogene is a time period in Stanislaw Lem's Novel Memoirs Found in a Bathtub. It is the time before the Chaotic, in which the Papyralysis happened. Due to it, the Neogene progressed into the Chaotic, which as some kind of informatorial dark ages, lasted for more than 200 years, with the first 50 years having no documentation of the events that occured remaining. "And so the Neogene entered into the Chaotic, which was to last over two hundred years. Obviously, the first quarter-century of the Great Collapse left no written records. We can only guess under what conditions government was maintained and anarchy avoided until the establishment, around mid-century, of the Earth Federation." "Most of the Neogene, ... , will forever remain shrouded in mystery, for even chronotraction methods have failed to provide the most fundamental details of the social life at that age." History of the Neogene ''In the first period, the Archeocredonic, various religions were founded upon the recognition of a supernatural, nonmaterial principle, causative with respect to everything in existence. The Archeocredonic left behind permanent monuments -- the pyramids of the Early Neogene, the excavations of the Mesogene (the Gothic cathedrals of Lafranss)." "In the second period, the Neocredonic, faith assumed a different aspect. The metaphysical principle somehow merged with the materialistic, the earthly. Worship of the deity Kap-eh-Taahl (or, in the Cremonic palimpests, Kapp-Taah) became one of the dominant cults ... . This deity was revered throughout Ammer-Ka and the faith quickly spread to Australindia and parts of the European Peninsula. Any connection, however, between the cult of Kap-Eh-Taalh and the graven images of the elephant and the ass found here and there throughout Ammer-Ka does seem somewhat doubtful. It was forbidden to utter the name itself, "Kap-Eh-Taahl" (analogous to the Hebrew interdiction); in Ammer-Ka the diety was generally called "Almighty Da-Laahr." But there were many other liturgical names, and special monastic orders devoted themselves entirely to an appraisal of their changing status (the Mer-L-Finches, for example). Indeed, the fluctuation in the accepted value of each of the many names (or were they attributes?) of Kap-Eh-Taahl remains an enigma to this day. The difficulty in understanding the true nature of that last of the Prechaotic religions lies in the fact that Kap-Eh-Taahl was denied any supernatural existence, was therefore not a spirit, nor was he even considered a being (which would help explain the totemistic features of that cult, so unusual in an age of science) -- he was, to all extents and purposes, equated with assets, liquid, fixed, and hidden, and had no existence beyond that. However, it has been shown that in times of economic decline, sacrifices of sugar cane, coffee, and grain were made to placate the angry god. This contradiction is deepened by the fact that the cult of Kap-Eh-Taahl did possess some elements of the doctrine of incarnation, according to which, the world owed its continuing existence to "sacred property." Any violation of that doctrine met with the most severe punishment." "As we know, the epoch of global cybereconomics was preceded, at the close of the Neogene, by the rise of sociostasy. As the cult of Kap-Eh-Taahl, mired in complex corporational rites and intricate institutional rituals, began in the course of time to lose one territory after another to the followers of secular sociostatic management, there arose a conflict between the lands still ruled by that antiquated faith and the remaining world." "Up to the very end -- that is, to the formation of the Earth Federation -- the center of the most fanatic devotion to Kap-Eh-Taahl was Ammer-Ka, a land governed by a series of dynasties of Prez-tendz. These were not high priests of Kap-Eh-Taahl in the strict sense of the word. It was during the Nineteenth Dynasty that the Prez-tendz (or Prexy-dents, in the nomenclature of the Thyrric School) built in the Pentagon. What was it, that first of many granite leviathans, that stern edifice which ushered in the twilight of the Neogene? Prehistorians of the Aquillian School considered the Pentagon's tombs for Prez-tendz, analogous to the Egyptian pyramids. This hypothesis was discarded in the light of subsequent discoveries, as was the theory that these were shrines to Kap-Eh-Taahl, where crusades were planned against the Heathen Dog, or strategies devised to ensure his successful conversion." The whole final phase of the religion of Kap-Eh-Taahl and the Neogene was (the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth Dynasties) Category:Historic Period Category:Future Category:2015-2052 Category:Post-Anthropocene Category:Memoirs Found in a Bathtub